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Environmental Health Division

Evaluating Your Pesticide Risk

The following resources will help you find information to evaluate pesticide
health risks. For pesticide poisonings and other health emergencies,
call 911 or see Pesticide Emergencies.
If you are experiencing adverse health effects or symptoms that you think
are a result of a pesticide exposure, but the situation is not an emergency,
consult with your health care provider.

Products/Ingredients

To find out about the health risks associated with a pesticide exposure,
you will need to obtain information about the pesticide product. Read
and record the information on the label, including the product's name,
active ingredient(s), and U.S. EPA Registration number (required for
all registered pesticide products). If the label is not available, but
you know the product's name, contact the Minnesota Department of Agriculture or see Registered
Product Search.

Search and Retrieval Systems

Exposure

To evaluate your pesticide health risk, it is important to consider
factors that may influence the nature and extent of your pesticide exposure.
For example:

How and where was the application made? Who made the application?
Did they follow directions on the product label?

What was the extent (frequency, duration) of your contact with the
pesticide or contaminated surfaces?

How were you exposed (inhalation, ingestion, dermal or skin)?

What is the half-life of the pesticide in the environment? In the
body?

Many pesticides that are used today are readily removed by the body
(urine, feces) in a matter of hours or days. Depending on the pesticide,
a test may be available to measure it in your blood, urine, or other
biological fluid. These tests may not be available at your health care
provider's office; however, your provider may be able to send the samples
to a laboratory that can perform the tests. None of these tests, however,
can predict whether you will experience any health effects.

Consult with your health care provider to determine if a test is available.
Provide your provider with as much information as possible about the
pesticide product and your exposure.

Reference ranges for exposures to several chemicals, including pesticides,
are reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You may
compare your measurements to these ranges, where possible. For more about
reference ranges for exposures to contaminants, see the National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals.

Reporting an Incident

If you believe that a pesticide application was illegal or you have
been subject to an illegal pesticide application (i.e., the application
was not made according to directions on the product label), report the
incident to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture at 651-201-6333.
The Department will evaluate the information and determine if further
investigation and/or disciplinary action is needed. After hours, complaints can be reported to the Minnesota Duty Officer at 800-422-0798 out-state and 651-649-5451 in the Minneapolis/St. Paul seven county metro area. The process for filing a pesticide complaint with MDA can be found here.